XXV111. 



useful land mark. The register dates from 1629. In the churchyard 

 are a fine oak, now dead, and a large yew 15ft. in circumference. 

 The party then drove via Lyndhurst (Avhich was visited by the Club 

 on July 20th, 1892. Proc. XIV., xxv.) to Beaulieu, passing through 

 some fine forest scenery on the way to Tyyndhursr, the road thence to 

 Beaulieu being less wooded and more bounded by heaths and bogs 

 until Beaulieu itself is approached, the narrow little stream that runs 

 through Matley bog having become a broad river by the time it reaches 

 Beaulieu. 



The party here left the breaks and proceeded to St. Bartholomew's, 

 once the Refectory of the Abbey, but now the Parish Church. At the 

 intersection of the ribs of the waggon roof are curious carvings represent- 

 ing Abbots' heads, angels with shields, the arms of the Abbey, a woman's 

 head-dress of the 13th century, a crozier with date 1204, a carved head 

 with crown (supposed to represent Richard, King of the Romans), &c. 

 The north door has the original iron scroll work. The fine old pulpit, 

 which projects from the wall, is of stone, much ornamented, and 

 approached by a passage in the wall, the arches opening into which are 

 supported by pillars of black Purbeck marble. 



After a cursory view of the ruins the members assembled in the 

 " Cloister Garth," where Captain Ehves gave a short account of the plan 

 and life of a mediaeval monastery, observing that he was greatly 

 indebted to Dr. Jessop, the leading authority upon this subject, with 

 whom he had been in correspondence, and whose interesting book, " The 

 Coming of the Friars," was worthy of the writer's great reputation, and 

 formed the basis of the following remarks. Continuing, Captain Elwes 

 called attention to a curious freak of etymology and observed that the 

 names "monk" and "monastery" suggested to the popular mind 

 certain ideas which were the very reverse of the true meanings of those 

 words. A monk or " monachus " properly denotes a man living entirely 

 alone, as an anchorite or hermit ; and his dwelling was called from him a 

 " monasterium," a word which in its contracted form of "minster" 

 forms part of so many place names in Dorset, an indication perhaps that 

 the Dorset Christians of early Saxon times enjoyed some lingering 

 reflexion of the " Pax Romana," as the belt of infertile country, where 

 the two counties now meet, would have tended to discourage the heathen 

 raiders from further advance. More commonly in England, and abroad 

 the would-be "solitaries" endeavoured to secure the peace and seclusion 

 essential to their view of the duties of life by combining in companies 

 and erecting for themselves substantial and sometimes fortified buildings 

 suited to those troubled times, and thus the system of monastic life 



